West Virginia!

Mountains and mountains of tree-covered slopes, miles and miles of rivers cutting through 'em, gorge-ful of canyons abundant in lush-ness, tons of trails to walk your heart out, and steepiest cliffs to rapel on. That, my friend, is West Virginia. Wild and wonderful. Breathtaking and beautiful.

When you make your way through the shooting class IV and class V rapids, you can't help but yell and shout and scream as you paddle your raft away from the ginormous rocks. Full-on excitement and fun. And between the rapids, as the guide lets you jump off the raft and lets you float along the relatively milder currents, it is tranquility redefined. The river becomes the coziest bed you have ever slept on as you float tummy-up. The life jacket gives you a pillow-like cushion at your neck, and you look up at the clear, lovely blue blue sky with a few wisps of clouds, and you can't help but feel.......just peace. Just calm. Just happy. Floating in a pool is something, but floating in the natural river is just an extremely serene experience that you never want it to end.

Back at the rustic log cabins that we overnighted in, we had a delicious barbeque session where Bis and Santosh smoked the burgers and corn, while Ajay was an expert burger-arranger. The paneer was just awesome awesome awesome (courtesy Deya). And the kids cherrified the campfire with their smores. This was followed by some vigorous Bollywood thumkas, courtesy, not the girls, but the half-drunk guys, who were lost in their liquor (prepared by Ashok). Some were even ready to jump from the top of their cars (wink) while some mimic-ed Devanand. lolll

This was such a fantastic trip. Thanks all you guys and lets just storm the orkut, or facebook or watever ftp's there are with the pictures. And as long as we all are in this land of 'goras', we'll continue to indulge in the 'goron ke chonchle' as they turn to be as mazedaar as they can be (wink).